For most teenagers, turning fifteen is a bit of a shrug. It’s a
birthday before the big one, the one that comes with driving privileges
and all that open road freedom of the imagination. But for swimmers,
aging up to fifteen is a passage into adulthood. From that point
forward, you’re no longer an age grouper, cozily collected into
comfortable age brackets at most meets. At every meet from here on out,
now you have to race with the big boys, age be damned.

On Friday, April 18th, Michael Andrew celebrated his 15th birthday.
However, thanks to a clause in the swimming rule book that stipulates
that your age when a swim meet starts is the age you will be, for
record-keeping purposes, throughout the competition, Andrew had one last
shot to shatter a few more National Age Group records. He did. Of
course, he did; for the last few months it feels like the kid has
crushed another NAG record every time he touches water. His last one may
have been the most jaw-dropping of all: 46.95 in the 100 yard fly. Sweet
Jesus.

Obviously, Andrew will set many more NAG records in the years ahead,
in the 15/16 and 17/18 “age groups”. (Hell, his 46.9 in the 100 yard fly is
already faster than the 15/16 record in that event…) However, those are
really age groups on paper, not in practice. In competition, you turn 15
and it means you compete against all ages, or in the case of Junior
Nationals, every other fast 18 & under out there.

So, at the dawn of this rather significant swimmer’s birthday for Mr.
Andrew, it seemed a fitting time to take a look at the mass destruction
he spread across damn near every event. As a 14 year old, Michael
Andrew now holds every National Age Group record, with the exception of
the 200 breaststroke and the three distance freestyles. He’s the fastest
age grouper of all-time in ten of the fourteen events. Take a look at this mind-boggling roll call in yards:

Most of those records annihilated the previous marks. No 14 year old
swimmer had ever broken 56 in 100 breast before; Andrew went 53. No
14 year old had ever broken 1:48 in the 200 IM; Andrew goes 1:45 low.
Olympian Ricky Berens held the 200 fly NAG record for over a decade. His
time was 1:48.24. Andrew dusted that one by almost two full seconds.

These times for a 14 year old are almost impossible to fathom.
Michael Phelps never came close to yards times like this at that age,
and Phelps was breaking world records and swimming in Olympic finals
soon after he turned 15. They’re so hard to fathom, in fact, that his
success has prompted some nasty defamation. I’ve heard the unfortunate
chorus on more than a few occasions: He must be doping. Or, more precisely, given his age: Someone must be doping him.

Now, just to be totally clear: I am not making any accusations of the
sort. Nor am I spreading any rumors. These aren’t rumors or whispers,
these are the cynical kneejerk responses of those who can’t get their
heads around things so far beyond our sense of the possible. That’s what
happens when you reset the record books. Not everyone is going to
believe you. That’s sport these days.

Ten months ago Michael Andrew turned pro by signing an endorsement
deal with a “performance nutrition” company called P2 Life, and thus
tossed aside any future prospects of swimming in college. Last June I wrote a story entitled The Boy in the Bubble.
I was critical of this decision; I called it “wildly inappropriate and
premature.” Despite Andrew’s stunning success in the year since, I still
feel that way.

But to quote a dead man much smarter than I: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Take a look at Michael Andrew’s best times as a 14 year old. It doesn’t get much weirder than that.

Shattering age group records is plenty impressive, and no one in
history has ever been a better age group swimmer than Michael Andrew.
But ‘turning pro’, by definition, means joining the big leagues. It
means being among the best on earth. Not being the best on earth, for your age.

While the media out in Mesa breathlessly chased the exhaust of
yesterday’s Michael, maybe it’s time to look in the other direction. The
one named Andrew just turned 15. Which happens to be the same age
Phelps set his first world record. At age 14, Michael Andrew was in
another universe, light years faster than any other kid his age, ever.
But age group swimming is really just a warm up. Now NAG records no
longer impress.

To keep pace with the greatest of the great, it’s time to start wondering if world records are on the horizon.